WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
plans to skip an April 5-6 meeting of NATO foreign ministers for
a U.S. visit by the Chinese president and will travel to Russia
later in the month, U.S. officials said on Monday, a step allies
may see as putting Moscow's concerns ahead of theirs.

Tillerson intends to miss what would be his first meeting in
Brussels with the 28 NATO members to attend President Donald
Trump's expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi
Jinping at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, four current and
former U.S. officials said.

The decisions to skip the NATO meeting and to visit Moscow risked
feeding a perception that Trump may be putting U.S. dealings with
big powers before those of smaller nations that depend on
Washington for their security, said two former U.S. officials.

Trump has often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and
Tillerson worked with Russia's government for years as a top
executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, and has questioned the wisdom of
sanctions against Russia that he said could harm U.S. businesses.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner had no immediate comment on
whether Tillerson would skip the NATO meeting or visit Russia.
Two U.S. officials said Tillerson planned to visit Moscow on
April 12.

"It feeds this narrative that somehow the Trump administration is
playing footsy with Russia," said one former U.S. official who
spoke on condition of anonymity.

"You don’t want to do your early business with the world's great
autocrats. You want to start with the great democracies, and NATO
is the security instrument of the transatlantic group of great
democracies," he added.

Any visit to Russia by a senior Trump administration official
will be carefully scrutinized after the director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation on Monday publicly confirmed his agency
was investigating any collusion between the Russian government
and Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign.

Trump has already antagonized and worried NATO allies by
referring to the Western security alliance as "obsolete" and by
pressing other members to meet their commitments to spend at
least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Last week, he dismayed British officials by shrugging off a media
report, forcefully denied by Britain, that the administration of
former President Barack Obama tapped his phones during the 2016
White House race with the aid of Britain's GCHQ spy agency.

A former NATO diplomat said he hoped there might be a way for
Tillerson to attend both meetings, for example by changing the
date of the NATO talks.

The former diplomat, who also spoke on condition of anonymity,
said it was vital to present a united front toward Moscow. The
North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 to serve
as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

"Given the challenge that Russia poses, not just to the United
States but to Europe, it's critical to engage on the basis of a
united front if at all possible," the diplomat said.